The big Guy is trying to make a liar out of me. I have been reporting where I marked hoar frost for the rains. It has been a total bust. I no sooner called the situation we are in a serious drought and Sunday night we got one heavy shower at supper time and later at night we got another one. In total, I think we have had about one inch. It is a very narrow band that got rain as south of the Battle River there was nothing. My friend at Hillmond got nothing. I feel grateful that we have received some rain but I feel bad other people have received nothing. I have no control over the rain as only the big guy decides. In a drought all signs that we usually count on fail. My hoar frost calendar is not right. The half moon when it is positioned so water can run out has failed. No rain. The wind from the east with moisture in the air has produced nothing. As I said in a drought, all signs fail.
In the area around where I live there has been large tracts of canola reseeded. The canola that was seeded early was up and damaged by frost. With the drought we had, it just could not recover. The reseeding guys bought their seed from Pioneer and Pioneer have a policy if you have to reseed they will give you the seed needed for free. Good on Pioneer but at $6, $8, $10 or $12 a pound maybe they made enough the first time around to cover the second seeding. I never ever received a deal like that all the time I farmed, but I also was a committed brown bagger as I had trouble parting with the money for blue seed. For the guys still in a drought, that option is not there. It is too dry for canola to germinate. One of my friends also told me about barley seeded early, when the frosts came there were 20 or 30 acres froze black and flat on the ground. That crop will never come back.
If it is of any consolation, I have a week of rain marked starting June 14. With the way the rest of the hoar frost has been this year we can only wait and see.
On the home front the crew has the water barrier blue plastic installed on the house basement. We have the walls dug out down to the footings. I also put on 3/8 treated plywood on the outside of the plastic so we have a sandwich water barrier. That is done. There also were some weak and cracked studs in the basement. We are putting in cripples or doubling up the treated two by sixes. They are just about done that job. Now we will have to back fill and I have another weeping tile that I will install a couple of feet below ground. I have it made so water will drain out of it, out the north side of the house. I thought about putting in a second sump, but this should be better if it works. No pump to fix. My other weeping tile system worked too well. The water came out of the weeping tile into a sump in the basement. On heavy rains it came in faster than the pump could take it away, flooding the basement. With the new eavestroughs directing water to the north, the second weeping tile system directing water to the north and the new water barrier on the house hopefully we will have a dry basement. It used to be dry when we first built the house but the last 10 years water has been coming in under heavy rains and snow melt.
In political news, the trial of Mike Duffy for misuse of public money continues. At the same time, after an investigation by the Auditor General, another 19 senators have been found to have questionable expenses charged to the public purse. After finding the first ones, should we be surprised about the rest? That is a lot like predicting the Pope is Catholic. All I say is get the cops in there, charge the guilty parties, put them in jail or heavily fine them or whatever. Punt them from office. Get it done, get it over with. There are good honest people out there that could do the job, find some new, honest senators.
In one of my last columns I was not in favour of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This move is not well thought out as employers will just not hire people with no skills at $15 per hour. They can’t and stay in business. There needs to be a lower training wage until the worker has the skills needed, then adjust his wage up. It is very difficult to legislate pay equity all across the board. A system needs to be put in place where the needs of the employer and the needs of the worker are both looked after. It can’t be done by universally stamping all minimum wages are set at $15 per hour. Certainly a worker who has finished training and knows their job should command a higher wage. I think it is only fair. I have hired countless young people over the years who knew nothing and I had to train them. I have a saying here that you learn to do by doing. It started with my own five children and continued on from there. I believe my wife has counted over 60 hired hands we have had over the years. I never had anyone that was any good, work for me for minimum wage very long. I usually was able to raise their wages.
Joke of the week: A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. "Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents." Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was, 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like, ‘hello? It's only 25 cents!’" Ooooh boy. My Uncle Harold would really like this one.
